This Friday, Oct. 6, we will be co-sponsoring a climate change conference at the school. Please join us as we listen to a host of incredible speakers on the issues of climate justice and community resilience. RSVP here: https://support.law.cuny.edu/climate-change.

Please join us next Tuesday, September 19th, when we discuss Public Corruption and the Rule of Law. Preet Bharara will be in conversation with moderation by Brian Lehrer. Other guests include Zephyr Teachout, Julie Sorenson, and David Hoffman. The event is being cosponsored with Sorenson Center.

Please join us Tuesday, September 12, 5:00 p.m., at CUNY School of Law as we co-sponsor a conversation with Mary Bassett, who is commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Bassett will discuss her incredible work, which centers on racism as a leading public health threat.

On behalf of the 2017–2018 CUNY Law Review Board, we are pleased to announce this year’s CUNY Law Review fall staff members! Please join us in congratulating our senior staff, returning staff, and incoming staff! We could not be more excited and inspired to work with this amazing group of students.

Landlord harassment against low-income, rent-regulated tenants is an enduring problem in New York City that forces vulnerable tenants from their homes as landlords illegally pursue greater profits. Protection from harassment was a significant issue during Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s unprecedented land use revision of nearly 140 rezonings from 2002 to 2014.[1] As communities throughout the city began to understand the inequitable effects of rezoning, particularly for low-income communities of color,[2] many tenants and community groups began to organize and demand greater protection from the anticipated effects that rezoning would have on their communities.

There is a need for police reform here in the United States. The violent policing of Black men, women, queer, trans, disabled, undocumented, etc. is an example of how Black lives are continuously disvalued. The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter gained mass public awareness after the police killed the unarmed Black men, Michael Brown in Ferguson, MI,[1] Freddie Gray in Baltimore, MD,[2] and Eric Garner in Staten Island, NY.[3] Black Americans are more than twice as likely as white Americans to be killed by police officers.[4] The #BlackLivesMatter chapter-based organization is creating a movement that aims to put an end to disvaluing Black lives. They have a ten-point plan called “Campaign Zero.”[5] Campaign Zero is a police reform campaign that recommends policies and proposals different state legislatures should consider and enact.[6] One of the tools listed to help end violent policing is the use of body cameras on police officers while they are on duty.[7]

As Justice Kennedy recently noted, “[d]e jure residential segregation by race was declared unconstitutional almost a century ago, but its vestiges remain today, intertwined with the country’s economic and social life.”[1] In order to effectively combat the full range of contemporary housing discrimination, including its more evolved forms, such as predatory lending[2] and discriminatory rezoning plans,[3] plaintiffs must be able to plead Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) claims under the disparate impact theory.[4]

After decades of use nationwide, disparate impact was definitively endorsed by the Supreme Court for FHA claims in 2015.[5] However, the endorsement came with a caveat—a poorly defined “robust causality requirement.”[6] As detailed below, this heightened causation standard haphazardly blurs the line between disparate impact and disparate treatment, leaving plaintiffs’ well-plead FHA claims in jeopardy of dismissal.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s March 29, 2016 per curiam decision in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association means that, for a time, unions have won the battle.[1] But the question concerning the lawfulness of fair share fees, crucial to the feasibility of collective bargaining, will undoubtedly return to the Court. Spearheaded by the Center for Individual Rights and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Fund, two conservative non-profit law firms,[2] union opponents are dedicated to stripping public unions of their right to charge non-members for collective bargaining negotiation and other services rendered.[3] This jeopardizes thousands of collective bargaining agreements across the country and not just those in the public sector.[4]

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The City University of New York Law Review is a student-run publication devoted to producing public interest scholarship, engaging with the public interest bar, and fostering student excellence in writing, legal analysis, and research.